09 | October | 2012 | Existential Ennui

Tags

dusting out the cobwebs, Humor, life in the foothills, satire

I am a glass is half empty kinda person. Not that I want to be. Some things seemed wired at birth or conception or upon the first wary eying of the doctor in the delivery room. I don’t know, but I am that way, and I’m not thinking at this late date that it is likely to change.

So keep that in mind. I’m deeply disturbed by the state of the political contest at this point. I was starting to enjoy myself immensely and now I find that a dark cloud oversees all my reading of the political arena. My logical brain says that Obama is still likely to win but the other one is starting to look for a bomb shelter to hide in.

For the rich, it doesn’t matter at all who wins. They are only marginally affected. For the rest of us, the damage one man and his insane party can do in four years can be incalculable.

Which all means this: I’m finding it hard to write about politics and that leads me to my nemesis in life–INTROSPECTION. What the hell am I doing? I play to the choir, and have changed if I am at all honest, maybe 3 minds in 4 1/2 years of trying. The fact is my mind is no more amenable to persuasion by any Republican as theirs is to mine.

What am I doing? What good am I accomplishing? I’m spending a fairly good number of hours ranting on high about all the things I find wrong in this world from fundamentalist interpretations of scripture to the idiocy of “professional” wrestling. What mark do I leave upon this earth?

Not that I waste much effort on that. I’m not into legacy thinking much. I think it’s all nice and fine that people lay claim to the Next Generation they have insured, but I don’t. Life goes on. I’m just as dead whether you remember my name or not. If there is no God, and it’s only faith that tells me there is, then I have no inch up on the next guy whether I develop a cure for cancer or am a serial killer. Either way, dead is dead, and I can’t sit back and watch how it all plays out.

Now I said, I choose to believe since to me it is more logical than not. But I have not a clue what God will have me doing after I’m croaked. Do I re-incarnate as a Aleutian Eskimo or am I simply the ticket taker at the toll booth of heaven?

So legacies seem a frightful waste of time. I was always rather disposed to the answer to why? by the definitive why not?, as a good response to metaphysical inquiries of that sort.

On the other hand and there always is an other hand when it comes to the questions of life, at the end of the day, you rather like to think you’ve done something that matters just a little. I have cleaned the house this week, and that matters a little, and I have walked our dog much to his delight each morning. Beyond that? Hmmm, it starts to get a bit thin.

So with all this possibility that this election may go into the toilet, I’m not sure I want to continue ranting about crazy people and their crazy ideas to spoil this planet and much that it contains with their self-centered ideas of moral right.

So, I’m introspecting.

What do you want to do old girl?

I can walk dogs at the shelter or serve lunches at the senior facilities. I can learn Spanish and try to work on immigration issues. I can search for something meaningful to do to help the gay community gain their full human rights. I can write. But about what. I have to write. I can’t imagine not writing, and boring slogging personal journals don’t cut it. I recognize their therapeutic value to a degree, but they are also indulgent too no?

Whether it be sharing recipes or sharing faith experiences, it’s all been done a thousand times over, and frankly often by people much more in the know than me. That’s not being self-flagellating, it’s just true. There are damn few people in the world who can claim they are the “best” about much of anything. I ain’t Michael Phelps nor Steven Hawking–nice broad spectrum there don’t you think?

Maybe I’m just in a mood today. That means you read all this and it’s just a pile of crap to be flushed down the toilet of stupid writing. Obama wins, and I decide that my snarky opinionated bull is really Pulitzer material after all, and if I just stick with it, some one will recognize my talent and gift me with a book deal and bookings on David Letterman AND Jon Stewart.

Don’t blame me if you just wasted seven precious minutes of your now shortened life. You were warned.